


Indifference

by Paratale



Series: All Those Times They Didn't Kiss [4]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode: s06e07 You Are Cordially Invited, Gen, Guilt, M/M, Pre-Slash, but it can also be read in a non shippy way, i marked this as shippy because that's what i had in my mind, lots of Odo Guilt, not specific to characters, warning: brief discussion of alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7395025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paratale/pseuds/Paratale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Paradise is for dead people." Quark hasn't forgiven Odo yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indifference

**Author's Note:**

> yet another coda that just sort of Happened while i was trying to live my life. the resolution to odo's betrayal left me profoundly dissatisfied and i tried to fill the void a bit here.

It was 1100 hours and Odo was back on duty after spending the night in Dax’s closet with Kira. Knowing Kira forgave him for his actions during the occupation had put him in a lighter mood than he had felt in weeks; he felt a bit like he had shapeshifted from an anvil into a feather.

After reviewing the reports of the officers who had covered the late shift, Odo decided it was high time he checked in on Quark. He’d been too busy reintegrating Starfleet into the station’s security operations to watch the bar as closely as he would have liked, and he hadn’t run into Quark at Dax’s party, which was frankly suspicious.

When Odo entered the bar, Quark was busy fixing Morn’s second brunch and had his back to the doors. Odo smiled a little to himself before turning into a barstool on the end of the counter. Even after all these years, Quark could still be counted on to react with shock and irritation whenever Odo shapeshifted in his bar. It was very satisfying to watch.

Quark spent a few minutes chattering to Morn about Morn’s latest scuffle with an ex-lover. “If you ask me,” Odo heard him say, “No female is worth the trouble. Or male. Or one of those weird alien genders! Doesn’t matter what you do for ‘em, or how long you’ve been with ‘em, or how well you think you know ‘em. One day they’re just going to let you down.”

Morn muttered something in morose agreement.

“You see what I mean? At any moment, everything you thought you knew about someone could turn out to be wrong, and then where are you? Already sunk halfway into the mud and now it’s glebbening on you too, that’s where. Ferengi know better than to trust anyone. It’s what makes our culture so enlightened.”

There was a clatter as Quark plopped a tray of plates into the replicator, covering Morn’s reply.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a _bartender_ , you think this is the first time I’ve heard this story?”

A pause. Quark scoffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Eat your brunch.” Odo prepared himself to shift back to humanoid form when he heard footsteps pattering towards his end of the bar.

The top of the barstool dissolved, and Odo rematerialized seated in front of the counter. The only thing that annoyed Quark out more than Odo shapeshifting into inanimate objects was Odo shapeshifting inanimate objects out of himself and interacting with them. Odo clasped his hands on the counter and waited with anticipation for Quark to notice him.

Quark barely reacted when saw Odo rise up out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, then turned back to the shelves behind the counter, standing on tiptoe to reach a bottle on the highest shelf.

“You weren’t at Dax’s party,” Odo commented.

“Too loud,” Quark grunted, straining towards the bottle.

“You run a bar,” Odo pressed. He waited a beat for Quark’s responding parry, something like “yeah, you think I want to have my eardrums assaulted in my free time, too?” but it never came.

Odo crossed his arms, watching Quark look around under the counter, muttering about the stepping stool being lost again. Somehow, his silence needled Odo more than any verbal barb Quark could have come up with.

Odo extended one noodly arm to the shelf and set the bottle on the counter. Quark shot him an irritated look as he reached for a glass and practically slammed it on the bar. “I had it,” he grumbled, even as he opened the bottle to pour into the glass. Odo waited expectantly for Quark to start muttering about “creepy shapeshifting,” and was again left wanting.

“You’re being awfully tight lipped,” he said. “Sure there isn’t some other reason you weren’t at the party?”

Quark shook his head, then took a sip from the glass. He frowned, checked the label, and rolled his eyes. “Olak!” He shouted across the bar. A Ferengi waiter on the second floor almost dropped his tray. “This is the wrong vintage! It shouldn’t be on the top shelf!”

“Sorry!” came Olak’s faint reply. Growling, Quark shoved the bottle under the bar and moved in the direction of the stock room. Noting again how suspicious Quark was acting, Odo followed, feeling Morn's eyes on him as he passed by.

Once they were in the stockroom, surrounded by boxes of sauces and liquors, Quark finally whirled around and met Odo’s eye. “What do you want, Constable?”

“You’re acting very strange. Were you up to something last night when I was at Dax’s party?”

“No,” said Quark shortly, turning away again to search the boxes, presumably for the correct vintage. He didn’t even comment on how out of the ordinary it was for Odo to attend to a party.

 Odo frowned. “That’s it? You have nothing to say in your defense except ‘no’?”

“You got anything to charge me with?” Now Odo was silent. “Then you have no reason to be in here. Go away.”

“Something’s wrong,” Odo pressed, continuing to follow as Quark stepped further into the room to check another box. “You’re acting highly irregular and I don’t intend to leave until I find out why.”

Quark paused in the middle of his investigation of a crate of Andorian ale. He stood up, facing one garishly painted wall instead of Odo.

“Did it ever occur to you that I just don’t want to talk to you?”

Odo tilted his head, taken aback. “I… what do you mean?”

“I said I don’t want to talk to you!” Quark shouted, turning to glare at Odo, who blinked in surprise at the way Quark’s face had twisted with anger. “I don’t want you coming into my bar and… and _playing_ with me!”

“What? Playing with you?” Odo wrinkled his facsimile of a brow in bewilderment. His confusion only seemed to incense Quark further. He was glaring up at Odo and turning a violent shade of purple.

“Don’t you make that face at me! I—this,” he gestured widely to their surroundings, “it’s all just a game; none of it _means_ anything to you!”

“I don’t see your point; it’s my duty as chief—“ Odo paused, realization dawning. Deep down he had known they would eventually have to discuss it, but he had hoped it wouldn't happen this way. “This is about what happened during the occupation.”

“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” Quark hissed, vibrating. “Took you long enough to get the hint!”

Odo was growing agitated, the weight of his earlier burden rapidly returning. “I know it’s hard for a solid to understand—“ Quark cut him off, beginning to pace in an angry circle.

“No, I understand perfectly. You think you’re some high and mighty changeling who’s too good for the rest of us. Like some kid with his slug farm he throws in the trash compactor after he figures out the slugs are always going to be dumber than he is.”

Odo’s mouth actually fell open in dismay. “That is not how I feel!”

“Shut up! I’m still talking!” Quark yelled. Then he lowered his voice. “You know what the worst part of it is, Odo? I really thought you gave a strip about this slug farm. I mean, you were here for _years_! You come here and you live on this station for years and you make me think you actually—you make me—” he paused to breathe, blinked rapidly, then swallowed. “All it took was for you to link with one changeling, and you didn’t care what happened to the rest of us anymore. That justice and fairness crap was an illusion, just like the rest of you.”

“I take my work on this station seriously,” Odo objected weakly. He’d never felt as small as he did now, with Quark glaring up at him. “Of course it's important to me. You of all people should know.”

“Yeah, I took my slug farm seriously too,” Quark sneered back, kicking an empty carton across the floor. “You had me good and fooled, though. That's my own fault for ever trusting you in the first place. Would you believe I actually stood up for you? Cardassians interrogated my brother and I was still telling everyone you weren’t really a traitor.”

“I regret how I handled the situation with Rom; I should never have made a promise I couldn’t keep. If you want an apology, Quark, you have it--”

“Shove your apology. And stop looking at me like that!" Quark hissed when Odo's frown deepened. "Just tell me if you would have really let Rom get—get executed, if your favorite solid hadn’t ended up in jail too?” The angry set of Quark’s face crumpled slightly, as if some part of him still hoped the answer might be no.

The least Odo could do now was tell the truth, even if it just hurt Quark more to hear it. “I don’t know,” Odo admitted.  Quark smiled in the ugly, mirthless way humanoids did when they’d gotten the upper hand but wished they hadn’t.

“After you left Rom hanging, Kira told me to forget about you,” he said. Odo sagged visibly, and Quark looked away from him, towards the wall. “I should have listened.”

“Kira has forgiven me,” was all Odo could say.

“Yeah, and I suppose you thought that was all that mattered,” Quark spat. "Well, I'm still mad. And you know I won't be able to stay mad if you keep hanging around, so I have to be mad now, because you've messed everything up and you deserve to have someone mad at you!" With that final outburst, Quark crossed his arms and glowered.

Odo lowered his head, which felt heavier than ever. “I made a mistake, I admit it. But in the link things—they’re very different, and it’s easy to forget the things that mattered at one time, that’s what makes it paradise; I didn’t… _want_ things anymore, in the link.” Odo stumbled over his explanation. It had taken him all night to articulate this to Kira, and the intensity of Quark's bitterness had completely destabilized him.

“Well, if you ask me—not that you ever do,” Quark snorted, and he almost looked like his usual self. “Paradise is for dead people. You can’t ever do anything or be anything if there’s nothing you want.”

“You don’t understand,” said Odo quietly. “The link is pure fulfillment. There’s no need to do anything or be anything.”

“Then you might as well be a stone,” said Quark. “And a stone has no reason to barge in here and bother me. Make up your mind, Odo. I have _living_ customers waiting.”

And he left, abandoning Odo to a room full of alcoholic remedies that he could never imbibe.

**Author's Note:**

> i am gonna write them happy and together one day, i am,, but for now they are sad and apart


End file.
